


The Answer

by the_rainbow_jen



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, HP: EWE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-01-22
Updated: 2008-01-22
Packaged: 2019-03-21 18:33:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13746843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_rainbow_jen/pseuds/the_rainbow_jen
Summary: May your fondest wish come true – Chinese curse





	The Answer

**Author's Note:**

> Request: Draco and Hermione's relationship / friendship and how the people around them (friends, family and society, for example) deal with it. Story follows canon in all 7 books, but totally ignores the epilogue - EWE. Happy ending if possible? Or at least semi-happy. Preferably PG-PG13, but doesn't really matter.
> 
> Done for the 2008 Divine the Future Exchange on dmhgficexchange on LJ, just adding to the archive here (no edits to content)
> 
> Author/Artist notes: This is my first go with second person voice. I owe everything to Inspire and Floo for making this readable. Any remaining errors in tense are mine and mine alone.

What do you say to someone at a funeral, anyway? Aside from the usual platitudes, expressed regardless of the deceased – ‘so sorry for your loss’; ‘if there's anything I can do,’ et cetera, and so on. Doubly difficult when that person likely hates your guts, because you've been a shit to her your entire life, and have nothing to show for your current position besides an ugly tattoo and two year’s probation. Triply difficult when you owe even that little bit of your current freedom to their unfailingly noble testimonies, those lions three, and your ego is currently fighting with your long-lost conscience about what to do. You only hope that when you try to put into words a sentiment that's rattled around your chest ever since you saw how cleanly red her blood was, that the two constantly flanking her would keep their peace for the moment.

It is the hardest thing you've ever done. Worse, it is the most diametrically opposite thing you've ever done. If your father wasn't sitting in Azkaban, resigned to a fate worse than death, if your mother hadn't taken to her bed in mourning for a loss still to come, you imagine they'd have stopped you, with words of reassurance, telling you that you hadn't done anything wrong, not really, and it was beneath your station in life to apologize for doing what you were raised to believe was right, and why didn't you just do your time, and then things would eventually go back to how they were. Only they don’t know that you no longer think you were right, and you think your station means bollocks after hearing the screams of one of your best friends dying by his own accidentally powerful hand. Nothing would ever be as it once was.

The childhood you knew – of toys and sweets, words of affection, praise, and parental admonitions of manhood and pride – it is long gone. It ceased to exist the moment you were tasked with ending an old man's life. The dust of it swirled around you on that tower, on that night, illuminated from above by the green glow of a mark that matches the one now embedded in your flesh. You choked on its fading ashes when promises were offered for your future, of all the things you never knew you wanted until the words were made flesh, and hovered at the end of your wand, only to fall by another's lips, saved but not redeemed of your own shortcomings. You mourn that loss, even now, because it set into motion a world you always dreamed of, full of proverbial curses brought to life by your own cowardice and fear, and you would weep for the stench of your world reborn in the agony of death, as the writhing coils roll around a newly deceased corpse where you had breakfast these years gone by, innocent eyes glazed over in punishment for being born wrong.

All that remains is the future, which holds little fear for you in light of the past, regardless of reputation, or trial outcome, or what she might say. All you know is that you need to make right her scars, in order to live with yourself. It was not enough to deny them twice in the presence of their enemies and your loved ones; maybe if you'd done it three times you wouldn't have dreams of her eyes glazed, staring at you from the floor of the drawing room, frazzled masses of hair gone dark with blood and terror. You need to be brave, just this once.

Faced with two people who've hated you since you were eleven, and one who's confounded you nearly that long, you nearly stutter over the words. They were exotic on your tongue, like a spice brought in from the Far East, tried only once and despite the tears they caused, a delicious burn you had to have in your greediness, much to your parents amusement.. This memory strengthens your spine for the moment, and you utter the words in defiance, almost hoping for their retribution, so you can remain complacent in your lot. The boys -- no, men -- step forward, but are stayed at her hands. She looks at you and you feel as if a long festering boil is about to break open and ooze its putrefaction for all to see, shame long hidden beneath a veneer of scorn and derision.

When she speaks, it is worse than anything you've ever felt. A parchment slicing through your skin, over and over, leaving behind raw edges seeping your heart into her hands. That single word is a question you ask yourself daily, and not once in the seven years that you have known her—heard her lightning tongue and shrill tones, felt the calloused tips of her fingers, seen nature's chaos harnessed to a chignon—have you ever found an answer that satisfies you to give. You give her the only answer you have, a non-answer really, one that leaves you bereft of knowledge and peace.

She smiles. When you do know, tell me then, she says. 

You want to stamp your feet and scream and despair that she dare deny you this one small thing—you are convinced it’s the only thing—that you are convinced you need to put the pieces of yourself back together, jagged seams and all. You make it your goal, then, to convince her of the sincerity of your new mantra.

Time goes on, change swirling around you both, but you don't see it. The narrowness of your scope has shifted, settling on her with an intensity that would scare you if you knew how fully she’d become your world, and should frighten her, but doesn't. There are more funerals, and weddings too, and you wonder if you'll ever feel at home in this new world, or if you'll remain as cast out as you once wished her. 

It takes several years before you finally say the words like you mean them, give them depth that defiance couldn’t in sincerity, and she stops looking through you when you do, instead letting your eyes connect in mutual understanding, hard-fought on both sides, and she doesn't even ask you why.

The confession doesn't change your obsession. Instead, it enhances the intensity of your fixation, feeding a parasitic need to know her, see her for more than just a swotty know-it-all, to have her see you as more than a coward. 

Time hasn't been kind to you, despite your belief that redemption can be found. It is never uttered in her presence, but when you take messages for her like the lackey you are reduced to, you are careful not to transcribe the jeering words of contempt that follow you, as much in the silk of your hair as the mark on your arm, like a personal plague of your own making. You won’t let it spill over onto her, but still, you get asked why you don't just move on, why you keep dogging her, bringing her down, don't you think maybe she'd like a little space, and why don't you just declare yourself instead of mooning like a tosser? 

It’s the last, uttered by your former arch nemesis that throws you. Your quill goes slack, gaze uncomprehending, as you listen to him enunciate that clearly you fancy her, and while he might not like it, you and she fight less than anyone else she's dated, so why the bloody hell not? He leaves you to stew in your own juices, unresponsive even to her return. You've worked so hard to find footing in this life, standing on the ledge she graciously shared with you, and now she’s the only thing keeping you from falling into the abyss. 

This, then, this new facet you’ve found on your own heart is why you're still here. Why you fought for an apology, why you finally learned how to give one that meant something. 

You need space to breathe, as your lungs suddenly seize with the utter certainty that somehow, it would not be enough for you to convince her that your words have weight, are full of meaning, heavy, beyond platitudes of sentiment that she so easily dismisses, bringing you both to a place where there's only need, beyond the past or present or even future. 

She sees you there, standing in the street, and follows your gaze to the display at Flourish and Blotts where her biography, so reluctantly written, is prominently displayed. She'd protested having her picture on the cover, so they enlarged the only reasonable shot from that book signing day, with her half-annoyed and all imp to your eyes, and the air leaves your body in a rush. She asks you a question, something to do with work, and all you can think about is how you'll ruin things if you speak, that silence is your new mantra, else your world will crumble around you into pieces so fine they're beyond repair.

She asks again, her voice reflecting the bewilderment you feel inside at being blindsided by such a newly voiced reality crashing down on you. You panic and tell her nothing is wrong, that Potter needs to mind his own business, and you would have gone on except she goes pale, nearly translucent, and begins spluttering about how you weren't supposed to know, and she'd kill Harry for telling you because she was waiting until you were ready to hear such a thing from her, and she understands if he doesn’t feel the same, she’ll still be your friend. The fractures in your thinking heal, coalescing into the knowledge that the message Harry dropped so casually into your lap wasn't referencing your desire, but hers.

You grin, an infectious expression of delight so pure it makes her blink at you. Then you take her face in your hands and kiss her, drinking from her lips all the promises and changes and truth that have made you the man you are today. One who can withstand the whispers of scorn and the antipathy that follow you and sometimes her in the crusades she undertakes. One who can see the past for what it was, a birthing ground of sweat, and mire, and destructiveness that only the phoenix can emerge from whole. One who looks at the evidence of his past failures and repercussions and sees only a future bright with promises yet to be made, and a hope that redemption, at last, will be birthed from this shining thing you’re building, one day at a time, with her hand to guide you, as yours does hers.


End file.
